Chapter 25
May 16, 1814
“Frances Wellbeloved is your wife?” Natalya echoed in a small voice, pressing a hand over her aching heart. “You must be in jest!”
“Would that I were, my dear,” Grey replied ruefully. Seeing that she had begun to tremble in her thin lawn nightgown, he retrieved a blanket of Irish wool from a nearby chair, wrapped it around her body, and put her brandy glass in her hand. “I do hope you’re not planning to faint.”
She sat up straighter, eyes sparkling. “I’ll have you know that I never faint!”
“Of course not.” He gave her a fond smile. “I apologize for suggesting that you might.”
“Apology accepted. Now then, I suppose that you’d better tell me everything.” She shook her head and sighed. “Really, Grey, how could you be married to such a woman? What possessed you?”
“Satan, I presume,” he answered dryly. “Actually there were several reasons why I married Francesca, but in retrospect none of them seem very good.”
Bundled in the blanket and curled up on her side of the settee, Natalya nudged him with her toe. “Well?”
He shot her a dark look but continued, “Two years ago, I had a few weeks’ leave from the war and was in a reckless mood, drinking quite heavily, which didn’t help my judgment. I began to think that I would probably be killed in France, and it occurred to me that I should marry at long last and perhaps leave an heir behind. As it was, everyone had been on at me forever to take a wife, and I was bored to death with mamas pushing their daughters at me...”
“It must have been awfully trying to be so popular,” Natalya remarked, with mock sympathy.
Grey’s free hand moved down to squeeze her foot, then stayed there, resting lightly against her. “My family is another story entirely, and perhaps I’ll tell you one day, but the fact is that my home bore no resemblance whatsoever to yours. My father is... aloof, and my mother died before I was old enough to be influenced by her. When I met Francesca, who was newly widowed and as reckless as I, Father encouraged the match. She had a rather handsome dowry, which he needed to pay some gambling debts.”
“It sounds very romantic,” Natalya observed mildly. She found that, in spite of Grey’s cataclysmic news, she felt happy. They had crossed a line; there was a new bond between them, even if no words of love had been spoken. Grey was confiding in her, and she knew the reason why—even if he did not. She also found herself divining a great deal from his spare description of his upbringing, storing away each fact to be pondered later. “So, you married Francesca because it amused you, and your father needed to pay his gambling debts. What happened next? Were you ever happy with her?”
“The happiness issue rather begs the point, because we were scarcely together.” Grey sipped his brandy with a bemused smile. “The little time we had before I returned to my ship was more in the nature of a brief affair. I... ah—released a certain amount of passion in Francesca’s company, but there was no tenderness between us. Quite frankly, I don’t think either of us knew the meaning of the word.”
He had begun idly to stroke her foot through the blanket, and the radiance in Natalya’s breast intensified. Still, she couldn’t help asking, “Was that what I saw in the summer-house today? Passion?”
“God, no!” His brows lowered over stormy eyes. “Nothing of the kind.”
“Then tell me, Grey,” she pleaded. “Why did you never speak of a wife? Why is she here, rather than in London, and why is her name different from yours? Was my need to return to Philadelphia just an excuse for you to come in search of her?” Natalya gazed at him in the candle glow, utterly mesmerized by his presence, by the sight of his face and the feel of his body close to hers.
Their eyes met, and Grey did not look away. He’d already looked away from her once too often and was beginning to realize that it was hopeless. “Francesca ran away several weeks after I returned to the war. I heard rumors but wasn’t certain, which was the reason for my preoccupied state of mind during our journey back to London. I can’t say that I was sorry when I learned the truth, but men do get caught in traps of pride.” He laughed with grim humor. “I may not have wanted her, yet it stung to discover that she had left first. Rumor had it that she had flown with another man, but I still don’t know about that. Perhaps it’s over. At any rate, I doubtless would have sought a divorce and let it go, but I discovered that she had taken all the Hartford jewels, which would have passed to her when I inherited the earldom. I couldn’t rest until I made an effort to find her and retrieve what belonged to my family.”
“I don’t blame you,” Natalya agreed, shocked.
“Through a friend, I heard that Francesca was in America and had written of plans to travel to Philadelphia.” Grey paused, staring into Natalya’s eyes. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t know if you gave me an excuse to pursue her, or if she gave me an excuse to bring you home. Probably my motives overlapped.”
Even as her heart began to sing, Natalya started to fit together other pieces of the puzzle. “Ever since Fedbusk saw Francesca on the street, you’ve been plotting to confront her, haven’t you? Did you have anything to do with the party today?”
He nodded. “Stringfellow helped me arrange circumstances that would bring the two of us together. It was crucial that I surprise her, away from her home, so that she couldn’t have me put out or hide behind a locked door.”
“Odious man!” Without thinking, she leaned over and cuffed his arm. “You have used me repeatedly to further your own ends! Stringfellow persuaded Meagan Hampshire to have that party, didn’t he? It wasn’t to celebrate my success, it was merely a means to an end for you!”
He caught her raised arms and pulled her down across his lap. “For God’s sake, don’t take on as though this had all been arranged to humiliate you personally! Why must you assume that there was only one motive for the party? Meagan Hampshire knew nothing of me or Francesca. The celebration was planned in your honor, and you deserved it! Next you’ll accuse me of hiring all those young swains who swarmed around you while you were holding court in the parlor.” The instant the words were out, he longed to call them back. Natalya ceased struggling for an instant, and a triumphant light shone in her eyes.
“Aha! You were jealous!”
“What manner of conversation is this? You are as erratic as—as—”
“I know.” Waves of contentment washed over her as she lay passively in his strong embrace. “I’m behaving like a woman in love.”
Grey looked stricken. “Dear God—”
“I said I’m behaving like a woman in love, not that I am a woman in love,” she teased him, giggling softly.
Even though it was sheer magic to cradle her against him, Grey panicked when she taunted him with that word. Every male impulse in his body cried out to kiss her delicious mouth, to caress the tantalizing curves that awaited him under the gossamer nightgown; yet to do so would bring him even closer to that terrifying emotion....
“Now you must end my suspense and tell me what happened between you and Francesca today,” Natalya said, interrupting his thoughts. She nestled contentedly in the strong circle of his arms as if it were the most natural place in the world for her to be.
He looked down at her expressive face and smiled in spite of himself. “You’re a minx.”
“So you have said. Proceed.”
“Francesca is up to something... I just haven’t quite decided what it is. She’s extremely shrewd. I had expected her to respond in kind when I confronted her, to refuse to give up the jewels she wore, to be cold and threatening. However, she wept and insisted she loved me, then spun a nonsensical explanation for leaving our marriage. She handed over my mother’s jewels without a word, and was crying and begging for my forgiveness when you appeared outside the summer-house. “
“She wants to reconcile,” Natalya said, feeling distinctly uneasy. “She realizes that she made a gigantic mistake, and now she wants to be your wife again.”
Grey stroked her honey-gold hair and stared off into the distance. “Humdudgeon, as our own Fedbusk is wont to say. I’m not fit for marriage, especially with a woman like Francesca. No, it’s not love she’s after. I’ll wager her agenda is much more devious.”
Trying to block out his statement about marriage, Natalya murmured, “What is going to happen now?...”
He shrugged. “If I have my way, I’ll recover the rest of the Hartford jewels, then sail home to England and obtain a divorce. I wrote to Francesca tonight and said exactly that.”
“Do you think she’ll accede to your wishes?”
“I intend that she shall,” he replied tersely, propping his booted feet on the low table.
Natalya felt less certain, but for the moment she was satisfied. Yawning, she snuggled against Grey’s broad chest, feeling the crisp hair through the fabric of his shirt. It might be true that he had made no mention of her in his plans, but he had shared much with her tonight, and in her heart she knew a sense of peace.
“Rest assured, Grey, I’ll help you,” she whispered as her eyes closed and sleep drew her under.
Looking down at her winsome face, Grey gently brushed a stray curl off her brow and sighed. “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he said in an ironic undertone. Holding her thus and watching her sleep felt dismayingly natural to him. At length he cuddled her closer, enjoying the lush warmth of her body in a way that was only partly carnal, and wondered what the devil was happening to him. In the midst of his ruminations, a surge of fatigue made his eyes feel heavy and he let them close. Perhaps a short nap would revive him for the ride back to Philadelphia....
* * *
The blushing dawn roused Caro from a night of fitful dozing. When she opened her eyes, she discovered that her husband was already awake beside her.
“You look like a little girl,” he said affectionately, kissing her tumbled curls.
As if their bedtime conversation had not been interrupted by several hours’ sleep, Caro said, without preamble, “Perhaps you ought to go out to the cottage and see if she’s all right.”
“How can we be certain she didn’t come to her own bed during the night?”
“Because we would have heard her, and well you know it, for parents listen quite efficiently in their sleep. Do not look at me as if I am an overanxious mother, Alec! All last evening you tried to convince me that my worries about Talya’s mood and behavior were groundless, but I know her, and I have instincts about such things. Something is bothering her.”
“Cherie, it is scarcely dawn. No doubt she is sleeping. Would you have me disturb her at this hour?” Alec ran a hand through his hair and sank back against the pillows. “I think that we are both guilty of making far too much of this situation.”
Caro tried a gentler approach. “What harm could there be in you going quietly through the passageway and opening the panel at the cottage? Talya would not even notice unless she were awake herself. You can peek in to see that she is safe, then come back to reassure me and we can doze awhile longer and... rest together in the sunshine.” She gave him a blatantly suggestive smile and caressed his chest with her fingertips. “Will you not do this one small thing for me?”
“You are incorrigible, do you know that?” Alec shook his head as if exasperated, then caught his wife in his arms and kissed her deeply. “It has been a while since we lingered in bed.” His brows rose as he considered the possibilities. “All right, wench, don’t move. I shall return in mere minutes.”
Caro beamed as she watched her husband rise from the bed and shrug into his black silk dressing gown. When he paused in the doorway to look back, she was already pulling off her nightgown, and he quickened his step.
It had been months since he had been in the passageway and tunnel that connected the main house with his grandmother’s cottage, and he took a candle from Natalya’s bedchamber to help light the way. Pierre saw to it that the servants regularly swept away the cobwebs, so Alec reached the other end unscathed. There before him was a thin panel, and he knew a pang of nostalgia for the many times he had visited Grandmere in just this way. It still seemed odd to realize that he would not find her in the cottage, perched on the brocade settee, drinking sherry and embroidering.
Very softly, Alec touched the spring that opened the panel and slid it over a mere inch or two. A ray of light pierced the gloom of his hiding place, and then he saw them. Grey was seated across the parlor on the settee, fully clothed, his feet propped on a low table. Natalya lay curled in a blanket beside him, her upper body cradled against his chest. She looked like an angel, her hair flowing over Grey’s thighs. Alec was suddenly reminded of the first time he had seen Caro, lying unconscious on a carpet of autumn leaves. Disguised as a boy, she had been wearing a hat, and when he had lifted her in his arms and pulled off the hat, the most beautiful honey-colored hair he had ever seen had spilled out. Had he loved her even then?
The road to love and happiness had been a long one, but each step had been necessary. Natalya and Grey must be allowed to travel the path that destiny had designed for them, at their own pace, without interference. Silently closing the panel, Alec started back through the tunnel toward the house.
* * *
“Good Lord,” said Grey when he opened his eyes, “it’s morning.”
Clinging to him, Natalya made a sound of protest. “Kiss me,” she begged, unwilling to acknowledge the reality of daylight.
He stared at her for a moment, touched his mouth to her upturned lips, then lifted her away from him. “I must go. How could we explain this to your family? As it is, I’ll have to sneak around the stables and pray the servants don’t recognize me.” He stood up, rubbing his eyes. “I feel like the devil himself.”
“Must you be so testy?”
Standing at the window, he drew back the Belgian lace curtains and peered out at the sunlit garden. “Egad but it’s bright! And there goes Pierre DuBois.”
Natalya frowned and rose from the settee, still holding the blanket around her body. “Grey—”
“I must go, before he comes out of the kitchen.” He tucked in his shirt, raked a hand through his tousled hair, and turned to find Natalya standing right behind him. “And you’d be wise not to make too much of this, minx.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she replied. “We didn’t do any more than fall asleep together, did we?”
Though he would never admit it, that was precisely the problem. When there was lust involved, it was easier to explain away other emotional lapses and forms of intimacy, but Grey had no such excuse for the bond he and Natalya had forged last night. “Don’t be difficult. You know perfectly well what I mean. Just because I discussed a few things with you—”
“After wandering past my cottage window at one o’clock in the morning, purely by chance,” she interjected.
Grey’s eyes narrowed. “You are the most trying little vixen I have ever known! I merely wish to point out that you’ll save yourself heartache if you don’t make more of this past night than was actually there.”
“Never have you made a more ridiculously male statement! It’s quite apparent that you don’t know yourself what you mean, but I can assure you that I do.” Looking adorable wrapped in the blanket that trailed behind her, Natalya flung open the cottage door. “Although you may be confused, sir, I am not. Ride safely. I shall see you later!”
When Grey was gone, Natalya used the tunnel to return to her own bedchamber. Climbing the hidden stairway, she realized that she could conceivably get into her own bed and behave as if shed been there all night. It was still early, after all; no one would be the wiser. Humming softly to herself, she touched the spring that opened the panel... and beheld her father sitting on a moss-green chair in front of the fireplace. He wore a black dressing gown and looked as if he had just come from bed.
“Ah, there you are, child,” he said genially. “Do come in and join me. Would you care for tea?” He gestured toward the china teapot, cups, and a fresh plate of croissants drizzled with icing.
Natalya’s throat was dry as she closed the secret panel and glanced self-consciously at the lawn nightgown that revealed a faint outline of her lovely body. “Let me slip on a wrapper, Papa, and I shall be glad to join you.” She found one of her own in Caro’s dressing room and fumbled with the sleeves, her mind whirling. He knew! A man had spent the night with her, and even though no real scandal had taken place, Natalya still felt nervous. She thought back to the other time her father had appeared at the worst possible moment, when she had been in Grey’s bed, still basking in the afterglow of their coupling. Had he known then as well?
Alec had never been an overprotective father, but the young men who had courted Natalya before she went to France had quaked at the sight of him. He had never raged at her, yet her respect for his authority remained fully intact. When she felt he’d caught her at something, it didn’t seem to matter how old she was....
As Natalya crossed the bedchamber and took the chair Alec had drawn close to his, he handed her a cup of tea and said, “I’ve been talking to your mother, and I think it would be a good idea for the two of us to go away for a while. It’s been rather a long time since we’ve visited her farm in Connecticut. Although it’s being looked after, as you know, we do like to go up ourselves from time to time.”
“I remember that you used to take Maman away to the farm every spring when we were growing up,” Natalya said softly.
Alec grinned. “In those days, it was a good excuse to have her to myself.”
She sipped her tea, feeling her cheeks grow warm. “Papa... what is really behind this? Why were you waiting for me, and why do you think you and Maman should go away at this particular time?”
“I have to keep reminding myself that you are a woman,” he told her gently. “You’ve lived away from people, except for Nicky and his family, for a long time, and I believe that you are now discovering that there are more important aspects of your life than books and dreams. I know that a relationship has begun between you and Grey—”
“Papa, last night we didn’t—”
He held up his hand. “No, don’t explain. You don’t have to explain to me, and I don’t expect you to discuss your personal life with us unless you choose to, or you need our help. If you were younger or I felt differently about St. James, I might be more tempted to interfere, but my instincts tell me that I can trust him, ultimately, and I have great faith in the strength and wisdom of your heart.” He leaned back in his chair and gazed at her lovingly. “It is difficult for parents to stand by and watch their children explore life. Your maman has an even harder time than I, for she wants so much to help you find happiness. That’s why we should leave you alone for a while. It’s a decision I’ve made as much for our sakes as yours. We won’t have to decide whether to meddle or not, day in and day out, if we aren’t here.” Patting her hand, Alec added, “And you deserve some privacy. You’re a grown woman.”
“Oh, Papa.” Natalya’s heart swelled with love and her eyes brimmed with tears. “You really do trust me....” Weeping in earnest, she came over to him and sat on his lap, her face buried against the familiar expanse of his chest. “No girl has ever had a better father. I love you so!”
“And I love you, my darling daughter.” He stroked her hair and held her as he had when she was a little golden-haired child. “Be patient with Grey, up to a point, for he is the sort of man who may be afraid to yield to love. With a woman like you, there can be no half measures, and that can seem daunting. I held out far too long before I surrendered to loving your mother.” He sighed at the memory. “If you should need us, you need only send word, and if you crave advice, you must go to your grandmama. She is very wise in the ways of love.”
“I shall, Papa.” Natalya sat up and smiled at him. “It is a very exciting and happy and terrifying time for me. I really don’t know how it will all turn out.”
“It will turn out as it should,” he assured her.
“Does Maman know—about Grey and me?”
“She suspects, and it is driving her mad!” Alec chuckled, his expression transformed as he thought of his wife. “Her maternal instincts are working at a furious pace. She worries about you and wants to help, and, of course, it is because she loves you so.”
“I am so fortunate to have the parents I do.” Natalya kissed his cheek and added, “And especially to have so brilliant a father!”
“Ever since you were a baby, you have had a gift for flattering me at the right moment, cherie.” Alec laughed and set her on her feet. “I won’t keep you any longer. Your maman and I must pack, and you doubtless have plans of your own.”
Natalya picked up a croissant, took an inelegantly large bite, and grinned at him. “As a matter of fact, I do....”